The Thirty Years’ War in Europe [1] (1618-1648) completed the process of the Reformation of 1517 [2] and ended the model of res publica gentium cristianurum (republic of the Christian nations), which was based on the political dominance of the Pope in Europe. For centuries, the Pope was perceived as the sole sovereign, and the local aristocracies, represented by kings, counts, and dukes, were his vassals without the right to make and implement political decisions on their own. Protestantism, which emerged as a result of Martin Luther’s religious revolution, created the conditions for the formation of an alternative system of relations. This alternative was forged in the first European religious war (the Thirty Years’ War) and its principles were sealed in the peace treaties of Münster and Osnabrück (the Peace of Westphalia in 1648). The new model established a value base different from Catholicism, from which were born the principles of decentralization, religios freedom [3], private property, and responsibility sharing. Protestantism, being a new and progressive religious denomination, pushed religion itself into the background, giving primacy to secularism (separation of religion and state).
Today, the absolute majority of the world’s countries are secular, but this has not reduced the degree of debates about the peculiarities of the relationship between the state and religion. By the state, we imply a flexible and dynamically developing regulator, which establishes specific earthly rules for building internal and external relationships. Religion is an extremely conservative institution that positions itself as an intermediary between the physical earthly and invisible divine. The object around which both of the above-mentioned institutions are built is man – a sinful, greedy, and selfish creature, who seeks at any cost to take possession of all earthly things, but at the same time to receive forgiveness from above providing eternal life. The state creates laws and enforces them with a monopoly on the use of violence. It appeals to the human brain, which must calculate the consequences of a violation (earthly judgment), while religion deals with the soul (God’s judgment). Thus, the state and religion, just like the soul and the mind, are impossible without each other and inseparable from each other, therefore, from the meaningful point of view, secularism becomes a rather blurred principle.
History perfectly demonstrates this necessary interdependence. Thus in ancient Egypt the priests were subordinate to the Pharaoh, but it was they who ensured the heavenly unquestionability of his authority over all living things. Roman emperors and Greek kings considered themselves descendants of the gods, the rulers of Japan were until recently perceived as sons of the Sun goddess Amaterasu. The French republican statesman Napoleon Bonaparte, author of the Civil Code and an ardent supporter of secularism, declared Catholicism to be the religion of the majority of the French, because he considered the presence of a spiritual institution vital in nation and state building. He was not at all shy about this approach and even openly stated that Christ was useful to the state. He was constructing the ideology of Greater France, so the aristocracy and the majority of people – from soldiers to peasants – had to see him not as a mediocre Corsican who had risen to brigadier general, but as God’s anointed. The same model was followed by other European countries, including the Russian Empire, which for centuries was based on the ideology of “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality”. Even the progressive republican project of the United States was built on the Protestant Puritan ethic and the special mission that God had assigned to the American nation.
The Armenian project and religion have historically had a special relationship. The Armenian Empire, built by King Tigranes the Great, was an example of a state whose religious identity incorporated the beliefs of the most ancient tribes of the Armenian Highlands of the 2nd to 1st millennia BC. Tigranes pursued a policy of Armenization of classical Zoroastrianism and Persian Mazdaism, creating a universal spiritual tool to glue the various tribes, peoples and social groups scattered across his vast empire together around the Armenian statehood. Today, Greater Armenia is not just an object of some historical pride of the Armenian people, but also an important psychological factor demonstrating the creative power of a once mighty imperial nation capable of tremendous accomplishments. At the very least, it destroys the myth implanted in many Armenian heads that Armenians are incapable of succeeding in nation and state building. It is necessary to appreciate, respect, and honor this achievement, accepting all its components, including the religious one. Such accomplishments have no expiration date.
The Christian era, like the previously mentioned Zoroastrian era, has its achievements and contradictions. Every Armenian, at least once in their life, has actively disseminated information that Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as the state religion. Disputes about whether Christianity had a positive or negative impact on the future of the country have never died down since its adoption in 301. To avoid diving into the historical maze, we can dwell on the fact that a “black and white” approach is absolutely inapplicable to a phenomena of such a scale. The Armenian Church had everything: victories and achievements, betrayals and failures. However, when evaluating particular actions, one should take into account that Armenian clerics were almost always part of the state power and could rarely afford the luxury of making independent decisions.
The process of disintegration of the Armenian empire began long before the adoption of Christianity and was a consequence of weakening state immunity due to incessant infighting within the local political nobility. The logic of the events of that time suggests that King Tiridates III, having seen the deep crises within the Roman and Iranian empires, decided to reboot the Armenian state and begin the process of filling the devastated forms with new content. In favor of this is the fact that historians of that era described the Armenian king as an extremely pragmatic and cold-blooded ruler. Tiridates was not a king who believed in the new religion in a moment and immediately adopted it. On the contrary – he studied and tested it for a long time, and afterwards he accepted and nationalized it (like Tigranes did with Zoroastrianism).
There were periods when the Church achieved such an impressive economic power that it saw Armenian statesmen (such as King Pap) as a threat, and in order to eliminate it, individual clergymen conspired with Armenia’s enemies and adversaries. But from the point of view of realpolitik, this was a completely normal phenomenon for a spiritual institution that had ceased to fulfill its purpose. This was due to the excessive weakness of the state aristocracy, which was obliged to oversee the process of renewal and reform of the Church. Instead, individual feudal nakharars involved church ministers in their political games, creating a spiritless vacuum in the key spiritual institution. It is a striking fact that the Church often reached an extreme stage of decay followed by self-renewal. At many crisis and critical moments in history, the renewed Armenian Church has played the role of guardian of Armenian identity, preventing the nation from finally dissolving into external melting pots. This is also an important historical achievement, which is dangerous to distort and question.
Is the contemporary Armenian Church perfect? Of course not. But could it be different, given that the modern Armenian feudal lords in power have done to it the same things that their predecessors did centuries ago. The rulers of the Third Republic did not even think about the task of uniting the split Church (the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia and the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem) and effectively integrating it into the process of state-building and lobbying for the interests of the world Armeniancy on the international stage. On the contrary, they used it for their own purposes as a kind of obligatory religious attribute, without thinking about the tragic consequences of such an attitude. It is not surprising that people began to regard the Church not as a spiritual guardian, but as an extension of the corrupt power vertical. Apathy and disillusionment became fertile ground for recruitment by outside religions and sectarian movements.
Does the Armenian Church need reform? Absolutely. But this reformation is possible only after the formation of a national aristocracy, which will lead the country out of the 30-year imitative regime.
Can it be reformed by the current government headed by Nikol Pashinyan? Theanswer is unequivocally negative. First, a person who does not recognize Armenian history itself and pursues a policy of colonizing the country cannot a priori be a national reformer and statesman. Second, during his six years in power, he never once mentioned that the Church is critical to the Armenian identity and therefore needs to be reformed. He did not mention it because the very notion of Armenian identity as a complex product of thousands of years of history is alien to him. Pashinyan openly stated that there is only the history of the Third Republic, the rest is a myth and a threat to peace and prosperity with neighboring Turkey and Azerbaijan. Recently, in connection with the “Tavush for Homeland” movement led by clergyman Bagrat Galstanyan, Pashinyan began to speak frequently about the need for change in the Armenian Church. Without giving any assessment to the movement itself, its program (if any), goals and methods of achievement, it is obvious that Pashinyan’s thoughts are far from noble when he talks about “necessary changes”. They are strange, if only because he has never seen such a “necessity” during his six years in power. Everything is much simpler – the Church was silent all the time and everything suited him. But now Pashinyan has an excuse to strike a blow to the entire institution of the Church, to remake it to suit his needs and the needs of the new metropolises. The issue is not in specific priests and their statements, nor in the political ambitions of the Church leadership, but in the fact that the Church, as a fundamental institution, is one of the last barriers to the final closure of the Armenian question.
[1] Europe’s first major religious war between Catholics and Protestants. As it developed, it turned into a major confrontation between kingdoms, counties and duchies for the establishment of political hegemony in Europe. It ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which gave birth to the first system of international relations based on the principle of sovereignty – non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.
[2] The Reformation was a religious and social and ideological movement that aimed to fight against Catholic teaching and the feudal system on which it was based. The beginning of the Reformation is considered to be 1517, when the former Catholic priest Martin Luther arrived at the door of the Castle Church with his program for reforming the church (“95 Theses”).
[3] According to the Peace Treaty of Augsburg in 1555 between Protestant Lutherans and Catholics, the former were officially recognized as a religious movement. Guarantees of freedom of faith were prescribed for all imperial estates according to the “cuius regio, eius religio” formula – whose realm, their religion.
